Shifting winds bring sea change...
At the turn of the last century, around this time, the powers of the world were pretty content with themselves and the balance of power they had set up. They were pleased with the old order of things, monarchy, aristocracy, merchant, peasant or translated into more modern terms of the day, dynasty, privileged class, merchant-industrialists, labor. This was particularly true in Europe, Great Britain, Russia and the Ottoman Empire which dominated the world for the most part, with the outstanding exception of the United States of America.
Great Britain, France and Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia and the Turks had struck a balance of power that was tenuous based on an old order of the previous century that had been meant to preserve the past into the future. Queen Victoria and Prince Albert had contributed to this by their nine children and 42 grandchildren married across Europe to bind the empires by family ties.
What no one counted on was the technological change brought on by the railroad, telegraph and telephone, electricity, automobiles and industry. These were the tools of disruption that changed everything and in a sense ultimately World War I.
In August of 1914, waiting for the Guns of August (apologies to Barbara Tuchman), knowledgeable people waited on the beach after the assassination of the Grand Duke Ferdinand, heir to the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, to see what would happen. Their world was not just at the brink of a calamitous war all over Europe and it's empires, but on the edge of the world as they knew it.
It occurs to me that we are the frontier of such a time one hundred years later. The old order is no longer effective although scrambling to still piece it all together while perceptive and discerning people are waiting for the bubbles to burst. This time the main technological event is the science, technology and the internet from which most of our innovation now emanates. That's not to suggest we are heading towards a traditional world war but that we are at a boundary of time when the world is changed forever due to a change in the balance of international powers. It is precipitated by technological change born out by history and the world in an ever-repeating cycle of necessary change.
Although no guns may be fired, although that is quite possible with recent militaristic rumblings across the sphere, we are at a minimum on the front of an economic world war. The economic ties of the European Union are collapsing, China and Asia are struggling with the balance of capitalism and socialism, Mexico is crumbling in a full-scale drug war and the economic tensions of the Middle East are legion. The entire world is mired in debt and insolvency and it would be wise to reflect on history and recognize what any upset in balance of power usually brings globally.
11/30/10
11/29/10
A Vlog
In which I say "uh" a lot...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LRCOmy_80
http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x6LRCOmy_80
http://www.youtube.com/jrsnyderjr
11/25/10
11/24/10
Geography of the Mind
Five Thoughts...
Sustaining is building character, physical and mental health and solid values and not obtaining material things of little intrinsic value. Do the right thing and what you need materially will follow.
Thinking creatively about solutions to negative situations is positively coping.
If you choose your friends and who you associate with carefully, they will be aware when you need them there for healing and when you don't, allow you to mend on your own.
We are not the sum of products we consume but our choices about products we consume do sum us up.
It is far better to have your voice heard by a small group of good people with character than a thundering herd.
Sustaining is building character, physical and mental health and solid values and not obtaining material things of little intrinsic value. Do the right thing and what you need materially will follow.
Thinking creatively about solutions to negative situations is positively coping.
If you choose your friends and who you associate with carefully, they will be aware when you need them there for healing and when you don't, allow you to mend on your own.
We are not the sum of products we consume but our choices about products we consume do sum us up.
It is far better to have your voice heard by a small group of good people with character than a thundering herd.
11/23/10
No Fear
Nonsense...
You can't make sense out of a nonsensical situation.
When everything is no longer normal in the sense of what we once knew in our world, the usual responses no longer apply. If the world around us, whether locally, nationally or globally is topsy turvy, the tools we once used to make sense of it all no longer work the same. The stock market, retirement fund depletions, currency wars, inflation fears, foreclosures, bailouts, political turmoil, unemployment...all of these terms are floating around us and for many of us, some have a very personal and unpleasant meaning.
One thing is certain, the world is changing around us and our coping mechanisms are driving on roads that require a different engine with unfamiliar gears. The best we can do is recognize that we're no longer on that nice boulevard we're used to and on unknown road, use all the skills we learned from our previous driving experience, steering and changing gears as best we can. My bet is that everything we learned in the past can be applied in new and strange circumstances, with just a little aptitude, attitude, machinations and luck, to our best advantage. One things is certain, we won't know if we don't try.
You can't make sense out of a nonsensical situation.
When everything is no longer normal in the sense of what we once knew in our world, the usual responses no longer apply. If the world around us, whether locally, nationally or globally is topsy turvy, the tools we once used to make sense of it all no longer work the same. The stock market, retirement fund depletions, currency wars, inflation fears, foreclosures, bailouts, political turmoil, unemployment...all of these terms are floating around us and for many of us, some have a very personal and unpleasant meaning.
One thing is certain, the world is changing around us and our coping mechanisms are driving on roads that require a different engine with unfamiliar gears. The best we can do is recognize that we're no longer on that nice boulevard we're used to and on unknown road, use all the skills we learned from our previous driving experience, steering and changing gears as best we can. My bet is that everything we learned in the past can be applied in new and strange circumstances, with just a little aptitude, attitude, machinations and luck, to our best advantage. One things is certain, we won't know if we don't try.
11/22/10
Thinking Out Loud
Politicians are bullfighters in an arena that is a divisive sport of hate...
A Call To Action
The political arena, specifically Democrats and Republicans, this Administration and the outgoing and incoming Congress, has become the province of divisive mongers of collective hate, incapable of providing any real solutions to problems. They are perpetuated by an old school media that is increasingly making itself irrelevant. Answers to the pressing issues of our times, the need for advances in social problems, economic conditions, science and technology, can now only be resolved outside of the toxic world of the self-absorbed political class. How we, as a people, withdraw from their dominion, has become increasingly difficult but must be undertaken.
It is the leaders outside of politics, from the worlds of business, education, creative endeavors, other affiliations and individual citizens, who now must be the artisans at bringing people and organizations together in new ways, crafting solutions to today's dilemmas. The political world has rendered itself moot but not harmless.
The United States has solid underpinnings laid by the Founding Fathers, that are still relevant and can carry us into the future but must be disconnected from current political figures, who are not connected to those roots. Therefore they must made useless by creatively neutering them, since they will not go quietly or be ignored. Using the sound principles our country was originally built upon, the machinery of government can carry on without the current rascals, as much as they self-importantly insist they are the arbitrers of the affairs of the people and commerce of the United States. We need to rid ourselves of them as surely as our forefathers did of the British overlords and replace them with people whose ideals of government are minimalist and non-interfering in our the lives. It is a revolutionary idea whose time has come.
It will not be easy making these people understand their services are no longer needed nor wanted since they are convinced they are the government, rather than the people of the country are the government. Yet, it can be and must be done. Skillful leaders from outside the political arena must artfully maneuver around them, to advance science, technology, education, commerce and creative endeavors and move our country and economy forward into this century, rendering the present poisonous political parties and mainstream media moot and useless. Simultaneously the real American people, those that have been uninvolved in the nonsense and silent too long, need to rise above the din, go into action and work to elect and reconstruct a real government based on Constitutional principles we all deserve.
A Call To Action
The political arena, specifically Democrats and Republicans, this Administration and the outgoing and incoming Congress, has become the province of divisive mongers of collective hate, incapable of providing any real solutions to problems. They are perpetuated by an old school media that is increasingly making itself irrelevant. Answers to the pressing issues of our times, the need for advances in social problems, economic conditions, science and technology, can now only be resolved outside of the toxic world of the self-absorbed political class. How we, as a people, withdraw from their dominion, has become increasingly difficult but must be undertaken.
It is the leaders outside of politics, from the worlds of business, education, creative endeavors, other affiliations and individual citizens, who now must be the artisans at bringing people and organizations together in new ways, crafting solutions to today's dilemmas. The political world has rendered itself moot but not harmless.
The United States has solid underpinnings laid by the Founding Fathers, that are still relevant and can carry us into the future but must be disconnected from current political figures, who are not connected to those roots. Therefore they must made useless by creatively neutering them, since they will not go quietly or be ignored. Using the sound principles our country was originally built upon, the machinery of government can carry on without the current rascals, as much as they self-importantly insist they are the arbitrers of the affairs of the people and commerce of the United States. We need to rid ourselves of them as surely as our forefathers did of the British overlords and replace them with people whose ideals of government are minimalist and non-interfering in our the lives. It is a revolutionary idea whose time has come.
It will not be easy making these people understand their services are no longer needed nor wanted since they are convinced they are the government, rather than the people of the country are the government. Yet, it can be and must be done. Skillful leaders from outside the political arena must artfully maneuver around them, to advance science, technology, education, commerce and creative endeavors and move our country and economy forward into this century, rendering the present poisonous political parties and mainstream media moot and useless. Simultaneously the real American people, those that have been uninvolved in the nonsense and silent too long, need to rise above the din, go into action and work to elect and reconstruct a real government based on Constitutional principles we all deserve.
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